


An Epiphany of Serendipity

by Katchiia



Series: the secrets of the world [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Vignette, self discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 04:05:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16590536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katchiia/pseuds/Katchiia
Summary: This is a series of vignettes that are very dear to me and I decided to share. They are a story about my life and my self-discovery and journey for self-love. Writing them helped me and I hope that reading them can help someone else.——————————————————————1. Where Your Heart Is2. Dirty Words3. Because They Say4. That Little Blue Couch5. The Kids Are Alright6. Être Beau





	1. Where Your Heart Is

**Author's Note:**

> For everyone who has every felt they aren’t enough, you are.

The home is where your heart is. My heart isn’t at the house I live at. It’s not with the family that lives with me. It’s not with my father, who is never listening, headphones drowning out any words I speak. It’s not with my sister, who thinks it’s funny to run around the house, trying to scare our dog away. It’s not with my mother, who obsessively cleans the kitchen, muttering under her breath.

  
“You know, you’d be alright if you lost 20 pounds.”

  
My hands freeze around the glass I’m holding. I try to acknowledge her through the sandpaper that now lives in my throat. I can’t. I run. Salty tears are stinging the corners of my eyes, and I think: How ugly, how fat do you have to be that your own mother, with those loving mother eyes, can tell? If she can tell, can they? Can they see the insecurities I wear like bracelets on my wrists?

  
“Katie, honey,” she would later say to me. “You know I didn’t mean it. You know I think you’re beautiful.”

  
I nod, but she’s lying. She meant it. She always does.


	2. Dirty Words

“Laurie, can I talk to you?”

  
We’re sitting in her kitchen that always smells like smoke. I dare not speak above a whisper. Her mother’s a light sleeper.

  
“Of course.” She doesn’t look at me as she motions for me to follow her to her room. It looks like it hasn’t changed since she was five years old, and tokens of every year lived hung like medals on her mirror. My hands shake as I sit on her bed.

  
“I think I’m- well I might be…” I try to breath through the sponge that has taken residence in my mouth, sucking out all the moisture. I swallow. “Laurie, I’m bisexual.”

  
I lower my voice on the last word, like it’s a dirty word that you don’t want anyone to hear you say. The word that made me an insomniac. I brace myself for the verbal beating that’s sure to come. The obligatory, “You’re going to hell” or the, “You’re broken.” I close my eyes so I don’t have to see her disgust as she tells me to leave. And through the galaxies I see behind my eyelids, I think that this was a mistake. I had made her judge, jury, and executioner. It’s excruciating, the few centuries of silence I wait for the universe to smack me in the face.

  
Instead I feel arms embrace me.

  
“It’s okay.”


	3. Because They Say

My identity is a diagram my parents drew up before I was even born. I am straight, because they say. I am a Christian, because they say. I am obedient, because they say, but I can only stand the taste of iron in my mouth for so long. I have spent my entire life biting my tongue.

  
When I’m in a church, singing praises to no one, saying “amen” to the very verses that condemn me, I wonder. I wonder if the unconditional love my parents have for God extends to me.

  
They can’t see the snarl on their lips whenever I’m brave enough to stutter out a weak “but what if..” Our conversations always seem to feel like a breath withheld. I’m a rabbit living in a house of wolves.

  
What they can’t see, won’t see, is that I am not their story, ready to be written however they see fit. I’m the author of my own life. When they tell be what I have to be or else, I’m not obliged to listen. I realize that now.

  
One day I will stop biting my tongue. I will release the diatribe that has been brewing in me since the first day I learned to think for myself. That will be the day I finally breathe.


	4. That Little Blue Couch

There are those moments where time doesn’t exist. Where it seems like nothing exists and yet that’s when you feel the most real. That little blue couch always seemed so separate from reality. A little pocket of space, far away from our universe; a safe-hold.

  
My friends and I have spent countless hours lazing away on that little blue couch. We tangled our limbs like they had been knitted together, and I couldn’t tell where one of us started and the other ended. We fit together like a puzzle. It was calm, and not even reality could ruin that. The closer we were, the farther away the world was.

  
Nevertheless, there’s a flaw in every fortress, a crack that lets the darkness in. Sometimes that crack would let in all the problems and pain we tried so desperately to flee from. Those times when it isn’t night, isn’t day, we think. We think in silence and out loud. We think with actions and with words.  
And on that little blue couch, I finally realized that I wasn’t happy with who or where I was. I whispered it to them. I’m always whispering. They shared the same secret with thick tongues and thicker tears.

We must have looked pitiful, all of us on that couch. Maybe, just maybe, we’d be okay. At least we weren’t alone.


	5. The Kids Are Alright

The dark road is almost indistinguishable from the even darker sky, like a land of black licorice. My hands are grasping at my coat, the frigid air an unforgiving knife against my skin.

  
My friends are walking by my side. It’s euphoric. My throat feels dry from screaming and laughing, and I feel like I could live forever. We chase each other to the dock, that tiny little dock, and collapse.

  
The stars smile down on us, and I smile back. Our toes are barely grazing the murky waters. We’re all holding hands, and I welcome the icy skin on mine.  
The wind carries the sound of Frank Sinatra as we giddily scream our fears, the things that keep us up at night, to no one.

  
I scream about my future. That my parents will never accept me. That I will never accept myself, and that I am so completely and utterly terrified. My friends scream with me, and, for once, no one screams back at us.

  
Junior screams, “Forget you!” to everyone that told him he couldn’t.

  
Juliana screams, “I’m still living!” to those fearful creatures that told her she shouldn’t.

  
Parker smirks at the golden lanterns in the sky as he screams, “I’ll be okay, one day!” to the people who told him he wouldn’t.

  
Finally, I scream, “Someday, I’ll love myself!” and the words are true.

  
There’s laughing and crying, and I’m breathing.

  
I’m breathing.


	6. Être Beau

“You’re beautiful.” Stephanie says this with fire in her eyes and steel in her fists, as if she would retaliate against any disagreement. My hands feel clammy, and I struggle to keep my eyes locked with hers. Tears are burning at the corners of my eyes, taunting me. Why am I so weak? I’m about to cry, and over someone calling me beautiful?

  
I stare into Stephanie’s fierce gaze. Her hands are clutching at mine almost desperately, contradicting the expression she wears; like she’s scared I won’t believe her.

  
“Thank you.” I whisper. The words feel heavy on my tongue, like a burden. Not that I’m not thankful, that my heart isn’t swelling. I just can’t believe her.  
Her shoulders sag in relief at my words, and we turn towards the teacher calling the class’ attention. Her mouth is moving, but I’m not listening. As I dig my fingernails into my skin, I think. Was Stephanie being truthful? Or was she lying to make me feel better? These thoughts plagued my brain for the rest of the day. As I continued to mull over her words, something begins to register in my mind.

  
The way we perceive beauty is contrived by a society that does not want us to feel beautiful. Beauty is not just full lips and slim hips. Beauty is a puzzle, made up of so many different and original pieces.

Beauty is art, and we are all art, sculptures crafted from the clay of the earth. None of us are perfect or flawless, nor should we be. If we are without fault from the beginning, there would be no room to live and grow. We are all a little scarred from the turmoil we have lived through, but that’s okay. We’re still here. That’s what it means to be beautiful


End file.
